Pear and Apple Mincemeat

One of the Yuletide goodies I made this year that I had never made before were mincemeat pies. I still had some pears left over, and they were starting to go soft. I also had some apples that had been sitting around too long, and a bunch of half-used bags of dried fruit. I hadn't had mincemeat pie since I was a little kid, and Ball's Complete Book of Home Preserving has a couple of recipes for mincemeat in it.

I decided to go with the recipe for Pear Mincemeat on page 177, since it made less than the Brandied Fruit Mincemeat, and I didn't have enough fruit to make such a big batch. I also had to make some substitutions, though I think it's OK in these kind of recipes as long as I substitute similar things. I didn't have quite enough almonds, so I used some almonds and some pecans. I used some different dried fruit than what they had listed, but kept the total amount of dried fruit the same. I also used about half pears and half Granny Smith apples instead of all pears. That was mainly because I didn't have enough pears, but I also thought the different textures of the pears and apples would be more interesting.

I ended up with four and a half pints. I kept the half-full one in the fridge to use right away.

Next I had to find a recipe for mincemeat pie. The pies I enjoyed as a kid came frozen in a box, baked in the oven by my grandmother on Thanksgiving. I searched for a pie recipe, and found this mincemeat pie recipe from Joyofbaking.com. I liked the idea of making little individual pies instead of one big pie, and the stars on top are really cute.

The recipe worked out great, with one minor problem: the crust-to-filling ratio seemed all wrong. I made the crust exactly like it said, except for using brandy instead of water (a trick I just learned to make foolproof tender pie crusts - alcohol inhibits gluten formation!), but it only made enough to make 9 pies, not 24, and I used one and a half pints of mincemeat (the half-full one I had in the fridge, plus another pint jar I opened up), not only one cup like the recipe says.

Turns out it was because I used a standard muffin tin, not a mini muffin tin like the recipe says! Oh well, mine still turned out delicious, so delicious I forgot to take pictures of the finished product! I think I like it better this way, rather than making such tiny tarts. Making it in a standard muffin tin made each one a nice single-serving size. The star cookie cutter I have was just the right size for the top, and 9 single serving size tarts was more than enough for the number of guests I had.

Now I have three more pints of mincemeat for next year.

New Year 2013

The holidays are over, so it's time to look back on the old year and think about what to do with the new one.

2012 was my first year gardening at our new house. I'm starting to think that this site is not as good as the old one, which is too bad (since the old one was rented and we own this house). I got a soil test done, and I'm deficient in both nitrogen and phosphorous, and I'm low on organic matter. The soil is still rocky, but the rocks are different. It's interesting how that can change in a distance of only 5 miles or so. The rocks at the old house were much harder, weathered to these interesting curvy shapes, some with Swiss cheese-like holes in them, some with interesting fossils. It was a lot of work to dig them up, but they made nice landscaping borders. It actually made the rock-digging more enjoyable, to see what cool rock I get this time. The rocks here are much softer, and tend to chip and fall apart easily. They don't erode into interesting shapes, instead they crumble into little shards of chalk-like material. That actually makes them much harder to dig out, and once they're out, they don't make nearly as nice of a hardscaping material.

I'm also afraid I'm going to have trouble with shade. I have the vegetable garden in one of the few sunny spots in the backyard, but it's still surrounded by large live oak trees. Live oaks also send out a lot of roots that sprout more trees, so I think I'm going to have to dig a lot of tree roots out every year to keep them from completely invading the garden.

Well, you're supposed to "bloom where you're planted" as they say. So how did 2012 go? We moved into the new house in February, but weren't able to get the landlord to end the lease early, so we had access to the old house until May (and had to pay for both, ugh). That gave my winter crops plenty of time to finish out and even go to seed. I got a good crop of turnips, and collected seed from the peas, mustard, and lettuce.

In March we rented a rototiller to till up the sunny spot. I had always hand-dug new gardens, but this time I was in a hurry, because it was about time to get the tomato and pepper transplants in. We learned that you need to be careful who you rent tillers from, because using this one was horrible backbreaking work! The tiller was this ancient, lurching contraption. It was nothing like the tillers advertised on TV with little old ladies pushing them. I hope they're not all like that. It got the garden tilled, but we were sore for days afterward. In April we got two cubic yards of manure compost from GardenVille and added it to the soil. I hope that made a difference. We'll see next time I do a soil test.

Weather-wise we're still in drought conditions (though I still wonder if this may be "the new normal" instead). We got good rain in spring and the beginning of fall, but in late fall and early winter we had this really dry spell. It didn't rain at all in November, which hasn't happened in a hundred years. At least the summer wasn't as bad as 2011, so I actually got to harvest some things. Can't wait until I can get some really big rainwater tanks for the garden.

The stand-out crop for 2012 was peppers! I was overwhelmed by peppers! I had such lousy peppers before that I probably over-planted this time to make up for it, and then all the peppers I planted did great. The tomatoes did OK, but not as well as they did in 2010. This time one big problem was that I didn't cage them. Now I know how important it is to cage your tomatoes, because so many of them rotted by sitting on the ground. It was also disappointing that I planted so many Spear's Tennessee Green tomatoes and then they turned out to be one of the worst tomatoes I've ever tasted.

I tried again to plant fall tomatoes. I planted Arkansas Traveler and Cherokee Purple, and the tomatoes never had a chance to ripen before frost, even though that came late this year. I got a lot of green tomatoes to eat, but in a normal year where we get our first frost in November, I probably wouldn't have gotten that. I'm just not sure if fall tomatoes are worth it.

Transplanting the garlic from the old garden to the new just didn't work out. Even though they seemed to recover on top, I guess it was too much of a shock for them to be able to catch up and make good bulbs. I hope I get better garlic this year. I had such a good harvest in 2010, but haven't had anything like that since.

I tried to control the dreaded squash vine borers by putting row covers over the squash, and then taking it off when it looked like the squash were ready to flower. It didn't seem to help. I still didn't get to harvest one squash. Maybe I took the covers off too early. The squash were also on the end of the garden where they might have gotten too much shade, which retarded their growth. Maybe the varieties I planted were just not good for this climate. I also didn't get to harvest any melons, and didn't really get any good cucumbers. Again, this might be a variety problem. The luffa gourds took too long, and didn't ripen before our first freeze killed them.

2013 Garden New Year's Resolutions:

1. Getting a new shed - This might happen in 2013 or it might not, depending on whether my husband gets time to do it or not. Eventually we would like to tear down the garden shed we have now and build a new one. The current shed wasn't very well made to begin with and is now rotting in several places. It's also taking up a good chunk of the sunny spot in our yard, which could be growing more vegetables! Why waste precious sun on a shed? So the new shed will be built in the shade, and the garden will be expanded into the place where the shed is now. Once that's done, my garden will be doubled in size, and will end up about the same size as the garden was at the old house. The only thing we're having trouble deciding is whether to build the shed ourselves or to just get one of those sheds from Lowe's delivered. The former would be a lot more work, but probably yield a better product than the latter.

2. Try growing potatoes again - I grew potatoes in 2010, but the results were very disappointing. My yields were hardly more than what I used for seed. I think it was because of lack of nitrogen in the soil. According to Texas A&M, potatoes need a pretty rich soil. I don't know why Carol Deppe thinks potatoes are so foolproof to grow. She must have naturally good potato growing soil, up there in the Pacific Northwest. The Texas Hill Country is just not a good potato region, with our alkaline, rocky, clay soils. However, I'm not giving up yet, because I did grow good potatoes years ago when I gardened at a community garden in Austin. That soil had been worked on and improved for many years, but that lets me know it is possible! If I do manage to get a decent crop of potatoes, it will at least let me know I've improved my soil quite a bit. To give them the best start possible, I set aside a planting bed in fall specifically for potatoes, and planted a cover crop of Austrian Winter Peas to add nitrogen. I just turned them under yesterday, and that will give them some time to break down before I plant the potatoes. Variety choice is also important. I'm going with Red Pontiac and Purple Viking. Red Pontiac is a variety from Florida, so hopefully that means it does well in the South. Purple Viking is the variety I grew in 2010 that did the best, and it's just really cool looking. I've also seen in recommended in other places for Texas, so I'm giving it another chance.

I'm also trying again at potato seedlings. Last year I tried planting some of the "Purple Potato Seeds" I got as a surprise in a trade, but they didn't make it. I went ahead and planted the rest of the packet this year. I'm not going to put a huge amount of effort into them, but it would be neat if any of them made it and formed some tubers. Who knows? Maybe I could start a whole new potato variety adapted to this very unnatural potato climate.

3. Grow sweet potatoes from Sand Hill Preservation Center - In 2010 I got a good crop of sweet potatoes from the heirloom sweet potato sampler I got from Shumway's. I planted their babies in 2011, but that drought was too much even for sweet potatoes. This year I would like to try again, but I think this time I will order from Sand Hill instead of Shumway's. The main problem with Sand Hill is they're a little mom and pop business in Iowa, so I'll get my slips much later in the year than from Shumway's. The advantage of Sand Hill is that they're a little mom and pop business from Iowa, and they have a much bigger selection of sweet potato varieties than a major catalog like Shumway's, which only stocks the most common, popular varieties. Now that I have experience from 2010 under my belt, I feel confident enough to risk some "wild card" varieties from Sand Hill, in the hopes I'll get something really interesting. I'll probably re-order my favorites from 2010, and then also order a sampler pack where I don't get to choose the varieties. They have so many varieties that I just can't choose anyway. I'm really looking forward to it.

4. Try again with row covers on the squash - I still didn't get a good crop of squash last year, but I'm not giving up on squash yet. This year I'm going to try leaving the covers on longer, and I'm going to try putting the squash in a sunnier spot, further away from the oak trees. I'm also growing two varieties that might do better in this climate. Tatume is a C. pepo that's an old Mexican variety used as a summer squash. Most pepos are very susceptible to squash vine borers, but those are the modern, bush varieties that are most popular with modern gardeners. Tatume is a vining variety (the few descriptions I've been able to find of it even call it "aggressive"), which really helps with the borers, since those short stems of bush squash just get eaten right up. Also if it's from Mexico, I'm pretty sure they also have squash vine borers in Mexico, so maybe it's adapted a resistance to them.

The other variety I'm trying is Waltham Butternut, which is your standard butternut everyone grows. I've never grown a butternut before, but I've heard they're supposed to be resistant to borers because they have solid stems like cushaws. The only other C. moschata I've tried to grow before was Tromboncino, and it didn't make it, but I think that's because I tried to grow it up a fence. If you trellis you squash, they can't root at the nodes, which make them less hardy. From now on, all my squash is going to sprawl on the ground.

5. Grow more beans - Last year the Rattlesnake beans did well, though I mostly let them go to seed. I'm replanting that seed this year. I also let my Pinkeye Purple Hull cowpeas go to seed, since I had very few seeds to begin with, and this year I'm planting them again to see if I can get enough to eat this time. I'm also going to try growing Christmas Lima beans. Lima beans are supposed to be one of the most heat-tolerant species of bean. I'd also like to grow some bush green beans in fall. By fall, spring-planted pole beans are usually worn out from the summer, but I think I would have enough time to grow a quick crop of bush green beans in fall before it freezes, to have green beans in time for Thanksgiving.

6. Finish my beet trial - The beet trial I started in September is still going on, but they aren't doing very well because we had such a dry fall. We're getting some rain again, so I planted another beet trial plot to give them a second chance. It's good to have repeats anyway.

7. Do a paste tomato trial - I have five varieties of paste tomatoes in my collection now: Amish Paste, Opalka, Rio Grande, Hawkins Plum, and Big Month. I've started seeds for all five of them and am going to do a trial to see which one is the best paste tomato. And I'll get a whole lot of tomatoes for canning out of that too (I hope). I'm also growing Red Brandywine, which isn't really a paste tomato, but when I grew it last year it was so prolific, I wonder if it would beat paste tomatoes in a trial.

8. Be more choosy about varieties - Looking back over my post, one more thing stands out to me. Varieties matter. I've had a lot of failures in the last few years that were probably due to growing the wrong varieties. Trying to grow squash varieties that are especially susceptible to squash vine borers, for example, or tomato varieties that don't do well in hot climates. Part of it is me buying the wrong varieties. If a catalog says a variety is from the Northeast or Pacific Northwest, it's probably not going to do well here, and I really shouldn't bother, no matter how many garden books or shows or websites go on about how great it is. Also, I like to do seed trades online through GardenWeb, but a lot of times with those people send me seeds I didn't really want. Then I go ahead and plant them anyway, because I think since I have the seeds, I need to go ahead and plant them. I really should just re-trade them, or donate them to one of those nonprofits that take seed donations. Growing seeds that I know aren't going to do well before I even plant them is just a waste of time, space, water, and emotional energy. I'm still learning about which varieties do best for me (a process that takes years), but I can try to make success more likely.

That's all I can think of right now. I heard a while ago that they were expecting 2013 to be an El Nino year, which got my hopes up because that means an end to the drought, but then just a few days ago I heard that they changed their minds, and expect it to be another La Nina instead. That's too bad. I just don't want another year like 2011 for a long, long time.

The Mistletoe Moon

It's the last full moon of 2012. Winter has still been unusually warm and dry. We've had a few mild freezes, but still plenty of days where I could wear short sleeves in the afternoon. We also noticed our water bill went up, probably because I've had to water the garden so much. I really wish it would rain. We have a chance of rain on Monday, so I hope it doesn't turn out to be another disappointment.

The kale and collards are still getting badly eaten up by cabbage worms. It just hasn't gotten cold enough to kill the bugs. It's also too dry for them to grow very quickly to make up for the leaves that get eaten. I'm going to have to buy collards for the traditional New Year's Eve black-eyed pea, collard, and cornbread dinner.

The Red Giant mustard and arugula are still getting eaten but not as badly. I've actually been able to harvest some. I guess this really shows that spicier greens are better defended against caterpillars.

I just planted the celery, which had been in pots. I've never grown celery before, but so far it's doing well. I've heard that celery needs a lot of water, though, so we'd better get some rain soon now that they're out in the garden.

The shallots seem to be doing fine. That's another thing I haven't grown before, so I hope they turn out to be easier to grow than onions, which I've never had much luck with.

The beets are struggling along due to lack of water. Chioggia is still doing the best, but that could be because it's right in the middle of the patch, while Bull's Blood is doing the worst, but it's on the edge. This is why it's better to have multiple repeats of any experiment.

The peppers are finally starting to look wilted after that last freeze. They were going along fine for the first few freezes, but that last one might have been a bit too much for them.

The luffa gourds aren't looking too good either. I was trying to give them as much time as possible to ripen the gourds they have, but they're still green. I doubt I'll get ripe gourds from them.

In the garage I've got my baby nightshades under lights. In the cellpack to the left I've got potato seedlings. I tried to grow some potatoes from seed last year, but they didn't make it once I transplanted. I'm trying again with the rest of the seeds, though I'll probably also buy some tubers. On the right I've got the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. They'll all go in their own individual pots once they get bigger.

Next I need to figure out what my 2013 Garden New Year's Resolutions will be!

Cinnamon Basil Pumpkin Pie

For Thanksgiving this year I wanted to make another pumpkin pie (using more of that cushaw squash puree from 2010), but I was running low on ground cinnamon, so I thought this would be a good chance to try using some of that cinnamon basil I had growing.

I got the idea from this recipe I found on the internet, but it makes a deep dish pie, and I only have regular pie pans. I decided to use the pumpkin pie recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and just substitute cinnamon basil for the ground cinnamon. I also used Alton Brown's pie crust recipe from I'm Just Here for More Food, which is great because it has lard in it!

Overall the pie was good. It set up well, and had a nice smooth texture, but I ran into a couple of problems. I think 400 degrees for 30 minutes is too hot an oven for too short a time. The edges of my pie were starting to get overcooked before the middle was done. Custards need to cook low and slow, so next time I'm trying 350 degrees for a longer period of time.

The pie tasted good, but the ribbons of green basil in it just seemed weird. It took some explaining to my fellow guests for why there were green things in the pumpkin pie, and then why I would put BASIL in the pie. I think from now on I'll stick to ground cinnamon in my pumpkin pie and save the cinnamon basil for other things.

Cinnamon basil doesn't smell exactly like cinnamon. It's not as hot and spicy. I think it would do well paired with fruit of some kind, like apples. Maybe it wouldn't be as weird in an apple pie.

First Frost

Last night we finally had our first frost, though it looks like it was fairly mild. The tomato plants aren't looking so good, but the pepper plants look fine.

Here are the mushy tomato plants in the foreground, with beets and carrots in the background. It doesn't look like they froze all the way down to the roots, but I went ahead and picked all the green tomatoes off them anyway. It's supposed to get below freezing again tonight, so that might finish them off.

I ended up with about 5 pounds of green tomatoes, along with lots of lots more peppers, especially Lemon Drop peppers, but also some more bell peppers, negro peppers, and Cayenne peppers. Even though the peppers seem to have made it through the freeze I thought it best to relieve them of their burden of ripe fruits anyway.

So what to do with this final bounty of 2012? The bigger tomatoes would be good made into Fried Green Tomatoes, but I also have lots and lots of little ones that wouldn't be worth the trouble. I think I'll make those into Green Tomato Relish from the Ball Book of Home Preserving. Maybe growing fall tomatoes is worth it after all.

My first batch of Lemon Drop Hot Pepper Sauce didn't turn out very good. Way too vinegary. All I could taste is vinegar and capsaicin, and none of the nice citrus fruitiness of the peppers. I think a good Lemon Drop Hot Pepper Sauce should be fruity and hot, with just enough acid to preserve it, but not to overwhelm the flavor (if that's possible). I've seen sauce recipes around that used pureed fruit such as peaches, apricot, pineapple, etc., usually with habanero peppers, which are also reputed to have a fruity flavor (I've never been brave enough to try!), so maybe something similar with lemon drops would work out.

I guess the good news is lemon drops are so prolific I've got plenty more peppers to experiment with! Though next time I'll start with a smaller batch just in case.

Winter Coming Late

For the last month or so, it seems like the deciduous trees just don't know what to do. We had a little cold weather, but then it's been in the 70's and even 80's for a while and very dry. Most of the trees usually turn in October, but some still seem confused and are turning color late, or some of their leaves are falling while some are still green.

Here are the Western Soapberry trees growing along the side of the old garden shed. Usually these turn a lovely golden color, but as you can see here, some of their leaves are still green, while others are already falling off.

The Flameleaf Sumac was also late in changing color to brilliant red. Usually it does that in October and would be leafless by now, but mine still has about half it's leaves left.

Other trees in the area, like the Cedar Elms, Red Oaks, and Pecans also seem confused, with some green leaves still hanging on even though it's December already!

Meanwhile, the Yaupon Hollies have plenty of berries and have for a while. It's kind of weird seeing them, a tree associated with winter and Christmas because of their winter berries, all loaded up with berries while it's 85 degrees outside.

The good news is we're supposed to get a good cold front tonight! It's supposed to get down to freezing every night for the next few days. I'm looking forward to it. Sure, it means I need to go out there today and pick all the rest of the peppers and tomatoes, and they probably won't survive, but it's just felt so wrong to be listening to Christmas carols and putting up lights when it's this warm. It's about time for it to be winter already.

The Topaz Moon

Wednesday was the full moon of November, named after the state gem of Texas and birthstone of November. This November we've had very strange weather. It's been unusually warm, with highs pushing into the low 80's. It's also been very dry. San Marcos got about 0.1" of rain a few days ago, but in Austin they didn't get a drop, which is the first time they've had a completely dry November for over 100 years.

Usually mid to late November is when we have our first freeze, but we haven't even gotten close. Deciduous trees that usually would have lost their leaves by now are still in the process of turning color.

Out in the garden the warm-weather crops are still doing well, or at least if I water them, they are. All the peppers are working on a fall crop.

From top to bottom we have Chile Negro, red mystery pepper, Lemon Drops, and the bells my in-laws gave me. The only one that's not really doing much is Emerald Giant.

Most of the tomatoes have green fruits on them. I guess we'll see if they manage to ripen any before we finally get a freeze. There's no freeze in the forecast so far.

The Luffa gourds way up in the trees are starting to ripen and turn brown. Still not sure how we're going to get them down.

The warm weather has been less kind to some plants. My Tuscan kale is getting all eaten up by caterpillars. Usually I don't have this problem in November, but it hasn't been cold enough lately to kill the bugs. Might have to resort to spraying with Bt or neem oil or something.

They haven't gotten to all the kale yet. Here are some others I have between the rows of different garlic varieties.

The spicier brassicas are not getting quite as munched as the kale and collards. The arugula is doing very well.

The Red Giant mustard has some holes, but not that many. It's turned nice and purple on top, but green on the bottom.

I still have red lettuce, dill, parsley, and celery waiting to be planted out, but I don't really have room. I thought by now my summer crops would have been dead, leaving room for no winter crops, but not so far. They just keep waiting. I also would like to plant some pea and fava bean seeds, but haven't done that so far either.

Wonder if it's at least going to get cold by Christmas.